Set Darkness In Your Veins
by nothing-rhymes-with-ianto
Summary: Ianto's been craving something that is missing. In the night, on the streets, he finds it. Takes place about 2 weeks after Adam. Warning for assault and mentions of non-con.


_This was written for the redisourcolor challenge #28, using the words "arbitrary," "wane," and "notebook," and the phrase "leave it be."_

* * *

It was dark outside, a fine mist covering the city, and Ianto stalked through it. His collar was turned up against the cold, but it was simply for show; he felt nothing of the outside. His leather-gloved fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, like his body was itching for something, _needing_ something. Like a junkie craving a fix. He didn't know what impulse had forced him out on the street but he'd suddenly needed to wander, needed to find some unnameable something that his mind was craving.

There were two days missing from his mind, from his notebook, his diary that had become his record, from the team. He had no idea what had happened. And now he haunted the streets to find something that would settle this strange turmoil in his mind.

After a week or two, the rest of the team's worry and confusion over the loss of a couple of days had waned and nearly disappeared completely. Owen was back to his usual snark, Tosh to her programs and loneliness, Gwen to her self-righteous demands and general questions, Jack to his broad flirtatious smile and quick-fire commands. But the unease stayed with Ianto, and gnawed at him until he felt an arbitrary emptiness in a new place inside and now he needed something to fill it.

So he wandered the streets. Searching. Prowling. Hunting.

Sudden movement caught his eye; a girl darted, mouse-like, down the tunnel-like alleyway, and suddenly he was moving after her. Her frantic fearful breaths echoed off the walls of the corridor, her high heels clacking hollowly. He could see her glance over her shoulder and speed up, but he could move much faster than she, and he was taller, and stronger. It was fated to happen; he could feel it in the pit of his stomach as he gained on her.

She got half a scream out before his hand clenched the sides of her jaw. She stared up at him from the corner of her eye, eyes feral and wild, trembling.

"Shhh." He ran a finger down the side of her face and she shuddered. She was so weak, so tiny, and he was strong, and hard, so hard at the thought of this fragile little thing under his hands.

He could see the pulse jumping at the side of her neck, her throat working to swallow around his grip on her jaw, her small pale chest twitching and heaving to breathe. It was like holding something made of glass, or a tiny little sparrow, bones so light and frame so small it was almost too easy to crush. He pressed his hand experimentally down on her throat and her breath hitched. A rush flooded through him. This was what he was searching for. _This_ was what he was missing.

He was almost tempted to go further with her. To force himself upon her just to feel her delicate body writhe under him and to hear her breathless gasps and pleas for help that would not come. But he could not. He would not taint his first that way.

His hand crushed slowly against her windpipe, and he chuckled slightly at the feeling of her beginning to struggle. He capture both of her hands in his free one, and pressed his grip further against her as she tried to call out.

He could feel tendons straining, muscles taut and corded, twitching and pulling beneath his fingers. The ripple of her throat working to take in air washed a thrill across his spine and he hummed in her ear. She struggled harder, but he only shushed her and pressed more firmly and he could tell now that she was seeing black at the edges of her vision as her breaths hiccupped past his hands and her body began to relax.

He felt the very last choke as a leap beneath his grip, and then she was still, and the thrill continued to arc up and down his spine as he felt her body slide against his as it dropped to the ground. She splayed across the ground like a morbid portrait. He almost wanted to a photograph. A souvenir. But the rush was enough.

A noise pulled him from his contemplation of the corpse. He looked up. A blonde man stood across the alley, staring at him, unafraid. He looked interested, almost. Intrigued, eager.

No. This was Ianto's kill. This was his property. She was his and she would not be tainted by another's hands. He stepped forward, face a grimace.

"Leave it be." The man shifted on his feet. "Leave. It."

The man's hands raised in a defensive gesture and he backed away before heading back down the alley.

She was his, and he was whole again.


End file.
